Is 2019 The Year Of Peak Rye?
This Year Saw Many Outstanding Rye Whiskeys. Was It The Best Class For Modern Times?
By Richard Thomas
(Credit: Richard Thomas)
With the coming of Fall, I can look back on 2019 and tell you it was a mighty fine year in rye whiskey. Three releases in particular have given me sufficient pause to wonder if this hasn’t been the best year for rye in modern history, the peak of the rye revival.
Dad’s Hat Bottled In Bond: The first bottled in bond whiskey from Pennsylvania’s Dad’s Hat came out in 2017, but this year brought special news. While I was working on my forthcoming book, American Whiskey, the company told me that their bottled in bond expression was going to become a regular, annual release.
As the 2017 whiskey was a one-shot release, that was big news. Dad’s Hat is at the forefront of the revival of the classic Pennsylvania Rye style, and that the distillery is in a position to turn out regular batches of bottled in bond whiskey speaks to their inventory of aging stock. It’s an excellent milestone for both Pennsylvania Rye and craft whiskey generally.
(Credit: Heaven Hill)
Parker’s Heritage Heavy Char Rye: Although Heaven Hill had previously turned out a wheat whiskey and a malt whiskey (and the latter without having a malt brand in regular release!) in their prestigious Parker’s Heritage series, they waited until this year—the 13th installment—to turn to rye whiskey. Although not an especially old whiskey at 8 3/4 years, Parker’s Heritage 2019 was marked by its exotic aging: the rye whiskey was matured in deeply scorched “Char 5” barrels.
Wild Turkey Master’s Keep Cornerstone Rye: For those who were rye enthusiasts before the Rye Craze of 2010-12, Wild Turkey Rye 101 holds a special place. For many of those diehards, it was their premium expression of choice, and the Craze hit them hard, putting such a pinch on Wild Turkey’s stocks that WT Rye 101 was withdrawn from shelves for more than a year.
When Wild Turkey later introduced Master’s Keep as a their premier limited edition series, these diehards began their wait for the series to turn to a rye. They had to wait five years and for the fourth installment for that, which came out this year.
(Credit: Richard Thomas)
So 2019 brought important news in the revival of Pennsylvania Rye, plus two long anticipated releases from a pair of major distilleries. Added to that substantial foundation are some other new and noteworthy expressions that helped further 2019’s status as a special year for rye whiskey.
Jack Daniel’s Tasters’ Selection Barrel Proof Rye
Was this year the peak for modern rye whiskey? Probably. I simply cannot foresee another time where two super premium series like Parker’s Heritage and Master’s Keep release rye whiskeys as ardently awaited by the category’s fans. After all, those boxes have been checked; the only way to top them would be if two or more rye whiskeys as outstanding as Booker’s Rye were to come out in the same year.
